


Illumine

by meanwhiletimely



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1914, Canon Compliant, Enemies/Lovers, Grindeldore, M/M, POV Albus Dumbledore, Prague, Prophetic Visions, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Revolutionary Rhetoric, Sexual Content, Wizarding International Relations, Wizarding Politics, Wizarding Wars, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanwhiletimely/pseuds/meanwhiletimely
Summary: Against a backdrop of rising international tensions and impending war, Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald cross paths for the first time in fifteen years.





	Illumine

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [И тьма воссияет](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812598) by [Gwailome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwailome/pseuds/Gwailome), [WTF_Gelbus_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Gelbus_2019/pseuds/WTF_Gelbus_2019)



> For [Kierkegarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden), with special thanks for the location inspiration (and apologies for the sacrilege). _Dziękuję!_
> 
> A note of warning for referenced sexual assault of a minor character.

What in me is dark, illumine.  
— _Paradise Lost_

* * *

**Prague — July 1914**

The name _Prague,_ Albus remembered reading once, meant _threshold._

It had been founded by a witch, an ancient Seer, and she had named it well. This city was a doorway, a portal from the ordinary world to the extraordinary—the divine. The stone saints lining Charles Bridge looked down in unsparing judgment from beneath a gold halo of stars, and the Gothic spires in the distance lurched toward the sky with sharpened fervor, eager to impale any falling angels. The Muggles had to have sensed it, all that sorcery still simmering in the air: the entire city was an altar. 

There was magic in the way golden afternoon light played on the city's cobblestones and danced across its architectural façades, but it was an older, Darker sort of magic than could be found in the cold dreariness of London or the comforting warmth of Hogwarts. It was the sort of magic that felt primeval, that felt sacrosanct—that made every step across its thresholds feel like treading on hallowed ground.

No wonder it drew wizards to its spires like moths to flame.

"There's still time to prevent outright war," the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot was saying. Albus tore his gaze away from the statues and steeples and refocused his attention on the man at his side.

Henry Potter looked far younger than his fifty years, with a shock of wild dark hair streaked with grey and intelligent eyes framed by laugh lines—the mark of a man who preferred mocking his enemies to dueling them. The furrow on his brow, however, was becoming permanent of late.

Like Albus, he was dressed in ornate ceremonial robes: an emergency convening of the International Confederation of Wizards had adjourned less than an hour ago, and Potter had wasted no time pulling his Wizengamot protégé aside into the anonymous streets of the city. Thankfully, distinguished-looking men in robes were far from an unusual occurrence in Prague.

"Wizarding delegates from Austria-Hungary and Serbia could easily arrange an intervention," Potter went on, growing more impassioned with every word. "With a few well-placed spells on their Muggle counterparts—" 

"The Minister seemed somewhat less enthused by that idea," Albus cut in mildly. 

This was, perhaps, the understatement of the century—Archer Evermonde, the British Minister for Magic, had practically breathed fire in the meeting hall when Potter had interrupted his speech on wizarding peace through containment to suggest a more proactive solution to the looming international crisis. The resulting shouting match had escalated when the Russian Minister of Magical Affairs and the German Magical Chancellor had drawn their wands, and the Supreme Mugwump had been forced to adjourn the session before it could dissolve into a series of outright duels.

So much, Albus sighed to himself, for diplomacy.

"Evermonde," seethed Potter, "can't see past his own enormous nose. Large-scale Muggle conflict would affect us all: the Muggle and magical worlds are too intertwined for open hostilities between Muggle empires not to put the magical communities within them at risk." Albus looked pointedly to the group of Muggles walking past them on the bridge, one of whom had turned to stare—Potter massaged his temples and lowered his voice with effort. "Averting war is in our own self-interest, if nothing else."

"I quite agree," said Albus calmly, "but the Minister was right about one thing: international wizarding law provides no mandate for interference in Muggle affairs.”

“A mandate?” Potter repeated with a scoffing laugh. “No, we don’t have a mandate—we have an _obligation,_ on humanitarian grounds." The crease in his brow deepened as he leaned over the railing of the bridge, gazing down into the inscrutable depths of the Vltava river. "Centuries of isolationism have enabled how many horrors? War, slavery, oppression... we could put an end to all of it with magic. Inaction _is_ action, in the end—it is a choice. At a certain point, nonintervention is moral cowardice." He threw up his hands in exasperation. "There's no legal mandate? Then let's _write_ one."

Looking over, Potter found Albus wearing an expression that made him—for a moment—falter. "What?" he demanded, running an uncharacteristically self-conscious hand through his hair. "Do I sound like a ranting, senile old man? I swear this job is turning me into my grandfather."

"No," said Albus, shaking himself out of momentary paralysis. "You sound like someone I once knew—an old friend who shared your passion for acting to prevent atrocities, whatever the cost."

How many wizards possessed the vision, the intellect, the  _courage,_ to look upon the established order with clear eyes? To see the full scope of its failings and seek to rectify its wrongs? Far too few.

And yet—even a wizard like Henry Potter was restrained and contained within the system: suppressed by its limitations, strangled by its flaws. Laboring under the laws of men who died four centuries ago, in a very different world; now subject to the whims and weaknesses of living, lesser men. The passion, brilliance, and ambition of one man only went so far: no desire for reform was forceful enough, no hunger for progress powerful enough, to singlehandedly rewrite the rules in a single lifetime.

Not even a wizard like Henry Potter could remake the world alone. 

Not even, perhaps, a wizard like... Albus. 

"If anyone can convince Evermonde to see reason," Potter was saying, "it's you." His exasperated frown had twisted into a fond smile. "Talk sense into him, Dumbledore."

"You overestimate my talents of persuasion—or, perhaps, the Minister's interest in my insights." Albus raised a brow. "He is no more fond of me than he is of you."

"Well, naturally," said Potter, huffing out a laugh. "That doesn't change the fact that the rest of the Ministry practically worships at your feet." He rolled his eyes with good-natured mockery. "Albus Dumbledore, wizarding wunderkind—magical mind of the century."

"I would not give myself so much credit," Albus demurred.

Potter released a long-suffering sigh. "He has to listen to you, and you know it. The youngest-ever Wizengamot warlock, British envoy to the Confederation, and a prize-winning Hogwarts professor to boot—at this rate, you'll be Supreme Mugwump by the time you're forty. Of course Evermonde loathes you. You're next in line for his job." He gave a short laugh. "And mine, though I myself am much more willing to relinquish the title."

"I can assure you," Albus said lightly, "that I have no aspirations to Ministry power. Both of your titles are safe."

"No aspirations to power?" Potter stared at him, incredulous. “Does it just fall into your lap, then?”

“I do what I can, and what I must," said Albus with a tight smile. "No more than that.”

Potter shook his head. "Then _do_ what you can—that is all I ask. With any luck, we'll save the world before August and get back to debating house elf rights legislation by Fall." 

"Now there is an issue the Minister will never be persuaded on," sighed Albus. "I suspect he would rather give up politics to pursue a new career as a house elf himself than risk offending the old Pureblood lines.” He shot Potter a significant look, eyes twinkling. "Yet another point of disagreement between you."

“The old Pureblood lines simply _love_ to be offended,” Potter said with a wry smile, “and I simply love offending them. If the House of Black doesn’t hire a Hit Wizard to have me assassinated within the year, I will consider it a failure on my part.”

“Do try to avoid assassination, if at all possible,” said Albus gravely. “I quite like having you alive, if only for your ability to reduce Archer Evermonde to sputtering incoherency in front of every other wizarding head of government.”

Potter laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about me, Dumbledore.” He winked. “Death and I are old friends.”

Albus tilted his head with a keen, questioning look—when suddenly, Potter's gaze sharpened, fixed on something behind him. Tensing, Albus inched a hand toward the wand concealed in his robes, but Potter shook his head. Raising a hand now simmering with magic, he murmured,  _"Muffliato."_

The air around them hummed and buzzed, engulfing them in a secure cocoon of sudden silence. "Magical law enforcement," said Potter, nodding at two passing men dressed in nondescript Muggle clothes—hands firmly on the handles of sheathed wands. "Should have done that earlier—I would prefer our conversation  _not_ be reported back to Czech wizarding intelligence."

"Entirely reasonable," said Albus, eyes following the undercover Aurors as they swept the bridge, casting subtle tracing and identity spells on passersby.

"Although in fairness," Potter added thoughtfully, "diplomatic delegations are hardly their top concern at the moment. This is classified, naturally, but between the two of us—they're on the lookout for some young revolutionary firebrand, stirring up crowds from Berlin to Budapest with incendiary speeches about ruling the Muggles for their own good, abolishing the Statute entirely. If you think  _I'm_ radical..." He sighed. "Do you remember that attack in Kyiv last month?"

"The factory explosion," Albus said slowly. "Forty Muggles killed." And production halted on an entire line of Russian military weapons, though that hardly put much of a dent in the empire's arsenal—or outweighed the loss of human life.

 _But by killing a handful of Muggles,_ he could almost hear Gellert saying,  _thousands of lives might be saved. It is only a start. This is only the beginning. How long will it take for them to turn those weapons on us?_

"His doing, apparently," Potter was nodding. "At least according to my latest briefing from a certain D.M.L.E. department. It would seem he's been gathering quite the following across the continent—as I understand it, some revere him as a sort of prophet." He snorted softly. "A Seer, or so they say. Claims to have foreseen war, death, doom, destruction..." He glanced at Albus with a grim smile. "Is there any other kind of Seer?"

Albus could only hope his features were still frozen in a polite expression of casual interest. "This supposed Seer, this... murderous revolutionary..." His mouth felt dry. His voice sounded hoarse. He swallowed. "What is his name?"

Potter's answer was instantaneous: "Grindelwald." The world was suddenly blurred and shadowed—Albus drew a deep, steadying breath. "German, I think—"

"Austro-Hungarian," Albus heard himself say distantly. Potter looked to him, surprised. Albus forced down the bile rising in his throat and forced out words instead. "I believe there is a Viennese wizarding family by that name."

"How fitting," Potter said archly. "Well, it doesn't take a Seer to see what's coming... and if those prophecies of war come true, wizarding Europe will soon have bigger problems than a visionary rebel insurgent." He stepped back from the railing with a sigh. "I suppose we should head back; Evermonde will want to debrief—and by debrief, I mean yell at me with a fervor that would make a Banshee jealous." He turned to Albus, resigned. "Shall we catch the same Portkey?"

"Go on ahead," said Albus in a voice that sounded shockingly calm to his ears, "and kindly tell the Minister I'll follow shortly. I should like to explore the alchemical quarter, before leaving Prague."

"Ah yes, one of your many areas of expertise," said Potter dryly. "I admit I've never bothered with alchemy—all that impenetrable elemental nonsense." He shot Albus a crooked grin. "No offense meant, of course, Professor."

Albus attempted an answering smile. "None taken. Your talents lie elsewhere. Not all minds are suited to pursuit of the Great Work."

Potter gave a short laugh. "I suppose I deserved that." With a wave of his hand, the _Muffliato_ charm around them dissolved, sending the sounds of the city flooding back in a rush. "I'll leave you to your academic adventures, then. Watch out for any radical insurrectionists that may be roaming the streets of Prague, and Albus..." He paused, suddenly grim again. "Do consider what I've said." 

"I promise you," Albus said seriously, "I shall."

With a final solemn nod and a tip of his ceremonial hat, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot turned, and Disapparated with a soft  _crack—_ leaving Albus alone on the bridge.

The coppery sky was turning coral with the setting sun, catching the rooftops lining the river and flooding the water with streaks of red and gold. Albus glanced up at the lamp-post illuminating a nearby stone saint, and reached into the pocket of his robes to extract what appeared to be a silver cigarette lighter.

With a single click of the Deluminator, light flickered out of the lamp and into his hand.

Another click—he closed his eyes. When he opened them again and looked down, a small beacon of light was shining out of his chest.

Albus inhaled sharply. A quick, surreptitious look around the bridge showed his end of it nearly deserted—the foreign Aurors had crossed to the streets beyond, and no passing Muggles spared him a second glance.

His heart was racing, pounding, _burning_. Albus cast a discrete Disillusionment charm around himself, and readied his shaking fingers for a final click. 

"Gellert," he heard himself whisper—tongue tightening around the syllables as if speaking a Dark, half-forgotten spell.

The world tilted and lurched forward as he Disapparated. Moments later, Albus was standing alone on a shadowed side street, breathing hard: staring at a familiar symbol drawn onto the blank stone wall of an old building.

The line, the circle, the triangle. The Wand, the Stone, and the Cloak. The sign of the Deathly Hallows.

The Deluminator had worked.

Still invisible beneath the Disillusionment, Albus reached out a trembling hand to trace the Hallows symbol—and before he could so much as think an incantation, the stone wall opened to his touch, revealing a dark passageway descending deep underground.

A chill swept through him as Gellert's magic coiled out from within, shivering down his spine with familiar fervor. Even now, the sensation washing over him was unmistakable, unforgettable: he had soaked himself too deeply in Gellert's spellwork not to feel it in the air, in the stones, in his blood.

He could still turn back.  _Should_ turn back.

He did not.

Gellert's magic caressed and engulfed him as he stepped forward through an unseen barrier—for the briefest of seconds, cold air was pressing hard around him in a soundless void, stealing his breath and compressing his lungs, but then he was through, and the stone portal closed once more.

Albus stood still for a moment, catching his breath. His skin was tingling faintly, hair seeming to whip around him of its own accord as the sudden darkness of the passage weighed upon him with increasing urgency. There was old magic, _Dark_ magic here: the place was wild with it.

 _Let there be light._ With another wary click of the Deluminator, Albus peered into the passageway before him.

Prague, he knew, had an extensive underground—miles of labyrinthine tunnels connecting the city's oldest buildings; a subterranean shadow city beneath the sunlit streets. In centuries past, alchemists and Muggles of all kinds had made use of it in secret for everything from laboratories to dungeons. These days, most of the passages were thought to be blocked or closed, long fallen into disuse and disrepair... but that was nothing that could not be fixed with magic.

The perfect place to plot a revolution—to hold clandestine meetings, to make secret speeches, to scheme below the eyes and ears of the authorities. To plan the overthrow of the Confederation from beneath its very nose.

He had once told Gellert that himself.

Faint sounds echoed through the stones, drifting from some far-off destination: footsteps, voices. Bracing himself, Albus strengthened the Disillusionment charm and clicked off the Deluminator, moving forward in stealth through darkness. Shadows flickered in the distance as he stepped down worn stone stairs and through another narrow passage—soon after rounding a corner, the tunnel opened at last into a shadowed torchlit chamber.

The cold, damp air was crackling with magic: at least a hundred witches and wizards already lined the stone room, most of them cloaked with their faces in shadow. Some still filed in from other underground passageways: all leading, it would seem, to this vaulted antechamber lit by levitating torches.

None of the assembly faced Albus as he entered, instead peering up at a raised stone platform at the end of the room, murmuring among themselves with hushed excitement. Waiting for something, it seemed—or someone.

Albus carefully maneuvered around the back of the crowd, unseen and unsettled. There were engravings on the arched stone walls, faded names and soot-covered numbers. The year _1727_...  An indecipherable word in Czech, another in what looked like German... A series of jagged etch marks that reminded him of a long-ago visit to Azkaban. 

This particular underground chamber, he was willing to wager, had once found its use as a dungeon.

A series of loud _cracks_ made Albus look up sharply. A line of perhaps a dozen identically-robed figures had Apparated onto the empty platform, and raised their wands as one. With an eruption of spell-light, the stone wall behind them was now blazing with an enormous fiery symbol: the sign of the Deathly Hallows. 

The murmurs of the waiting audience intensified, rising and escalating into a crescendo of anticipation. Then the robed figures parted to reveal a young man stepping out of the shadows, and all noise and uproar seemed to fall away, leaving Albus transfixed in a soundless void.

Gellert—fifteen years later, fifteen years older.  _Gellert_ , in the flesh: exquisite and angelic and more beautiful than ever, still blazing with charisma and radiating power.

He wore a gleaming gold cloak draped over his shoulders like armor, and light from the flaming Hallows symbol backlit his golden hair with an unholy glow. His cherubic features had sharpened somewhat with age, hardening his jaw and chiseling his cheekbones, but that same piercing blue gaze swept the crowd; a slight, familiar smile tugging at the edges of his lips. Albus shrank back, heart hammering, but his Disillusionment held strong—Gellert's eyes passed over him unseeing.

Applause thundered down with vital urgency, and Albus’s very bones seemed to tremble with it. Then Gellert raised a hand, and the assembled crowd fell silent.

"Welcome, my brothers and sisters in magic."

Magic shivered through the air—a translation charm, Albus realized, similar to the one used in Confederation sessions: enabling listeners to hear in their native tongue. It was complex, rare, high-level spellwork, but that, at least, was no surprise. The overall effect was jarring: he could still hear Gellert speaking in his native German beneath the echo of the magical translation, faster and more fluid than the careful, lilting English that Albus remembered.

"You are here because you have heard tales of miraculous visions, whispers of a new movement. You have seen disturbing headlines in the papers, and listened to your leaders tell you to keep calm, that there is no cause for worry. Perhaps you are afraid. Perhaps you should be." Gellert's eyes glinted in the torchlight as a palpable shiver ran over the crowd. "I am not here to soothe you with miracles, or comfort you with lies. I am here to tell you that the rumors you have heard are true: revolution is coming."

More murmurs—silenced at once when Gellert tilted his head with a raised brow. His control over the crowd was tangible: they were hanging on his every word and movement.

But then, of course, so was Albus. 

"Today," Gellert continued after a taut moment, "the enforcers of the Statute of Secrecy met in secret in this very city to discuss your future." Albus drew an unsteady breath as Gellert spat out his next words with heated scorn: "The International Confederation of Wizards. The magical establishment that keeps us from unlocking our potential, keeps us cowering in the shadows, keeps us hiding underground."

He threw out his arms, gesturing pointedly around the stone chamber: the crowd jeered and booed, and Gellert allowed a long moment of derision and discontent before continuing.

"The men who have appointed themselves your masters see the Muggle world hurling itself into destruction, and think we will be safe if we sink deeper into the shadows. They are wrong." He paused, savoring the tense, expectant silence of his audience. "If we do not cast aside our chains of secrecy and step at last into the light where we belong," he went on in a low voice, "Muggles will plunge us all into eternal darkness." Another pause, heavy with the weight of prophetic certainty, and then, the old familiar phrase: "I have Seen it."

In a flash, Albus was back in the sun-soaked woods of a different, long-ago summer, staring into the future through Gellert's eyes.

_The two of us together, lighting the way with magic—most loved, most feared, most powerful._

_We will be great, Albus. I have Seen it. The greatest wizards who have ever lived._

_We're going to save the world._

Albus returned to the present with a sickening jolt as Gellert's voice rang out once more, effortlessly carrying over the clamor of the crowd with no need for an Amplification charm. 

"I have Seen Death—oh, yes." Gellert smiled beatifically, and Albus felt his heart flip over in his chest. "I have Seen the coming war. I have Seen the collapse of civilizations and the fall of empires." He lowered his voice. "Shall I show you?"

No one moved—perhaps no one  _breathed_ —as Gellert stepped forward and then down, moving fearlessly into the crowd. They parted for him at once, staring with something close to reverence.

"Who among you," Gellert asked quietly, "is brave enough to bear the weight of what is to come?"

A dark-haired young woman stepped hesitantly forward as Gellert locked eyes with her. He took her face in his hands as she gazed at him with a rapturous look, and Albus tasted something acrid in his throat. 

The witch's glazed eyes widened, expression falling quickly into horror, as Gellert implored, "What do you See?"

"Soldiers," she breathed in a low, unsteady voice: Czech, beneath the translation charm. "Armies." A ragged gasp, and she twisted out of Gellert's grip, breaking the Legilimency connection—choking out, "What was that weapon?"

Gellert smiled tightly but said nothing. An uneasy hum rumbled over the crowd as another pushed forward: a powerfully-built man, towering over Gellert wearing something like a challenge on his face. 

"Show me," he demanded, and Gellert's smile expanded into a grin as he met his eyes. Moments later, the large man stumbled backward into the crowd as Gellert asked softly, "What did you See?"

The shaken man blinked rapidly, breathing hard. "Sick... starved... dead." He shook his head in a stunned daze, adding almost to himself, "All those bodies..."

"I want to See." A boy who couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve—the age of an ignorant, innocent Hogwarts first year—had wrenched away from his father and rushed to Gellert's side with wide, eager eyes. 

Gellert bent down with a luminous expression, lowering himself to his knees and touching the boy's face like a blessing. "It is the very youngest among us," he told the spellbound crowd, "whose future we must fight for."

He locked into the child's gaze, the force of his concentration almost blinding. "What do you See?" he asked after a moment, stroking a gentle finger across the boy's cheek as he looked up with a frozen stare.

The assembly held its breath as one as the boy swallowed, whispering at last: "The end of the world."

A collective gasp ran through the room as Gellert rose with a final ghosting touch, stepping back to the platform through the hushed crowd. "An _apocalypse,_ in ancient Greek," he told them quietly, "means an uncovering—a revelation. The destruction of one world is always the beginning of another."

Gellert began to pace the Hallows-lit stage, resembling nothing so much as a prowling lion. "The old order is ending," he proclaimed, "but a new age is about to be born—rising from the rubble of the old like a phoenix from its ashes." He glanced down, smiling slightly as if amused at a private joke. Albus's jaw tightened.

"The task before us," Gellert went on—growing louder and more fervent with every word; animated with that same fevered passion that Albus had once known as well as his own—"is nothing less than the creation of a new world. A new unified system, a new international order, a new, more just form of coexistence between magic and Muggle, man and beast, all the various and wondrous forms of _life_ that share this planet, within a single interconnected civilization."

He paused his pacing to look out on the crowd, lingering on a chosen few with penetrating eye contact—sending words or images coiling into their minds with Legilimency. Albus closed his own eyes, and listened to that light, enthralling voice speak words that had come from his own quill fifteen long years ago.

"The challenge could not be greater. The stakes could not be higher. Our task is made all the more urgent by the increasing threats that Muggles pose to peace and to humanity, by their insatiable lust for blood and treasure—their need to control every aspect of nature, their desire to consume the world. Who can transform their violence, prejudice, and greed into something better, something beautiful? Who else, I ask you, but us?"

Albus opened his eyes.

"We, my brothers and sisters in magic, share not just a gift, but a duty." Gellert's face was shining with conviction; alight with purpose. "We are the apex of humanity, the pinnacle of creation—vessels for the primordial Dark energy that all magic originates from, channeling the oldest forces in existence. All the power of the universe flows through our blood, and what do we do with it? We contain it. _Hide_ it. We press down all that power, lock it within ourselves, compress it into something tamed, controlled. We fight against our very nature."

Was it his imagination, or did Gellert look directly to _him_ at those words, piercing through the Disillusionment and the darkness of the alcove to stare straight into his soul? Albus's heart stuttered—nearly stopped—but the moment passed, and Gellert turned with a nodding gesture to the robed followers still gathered on either side of the platform, radiant gold cloak shifting with the sudden movement.

That was when Albus saw it: an instantly recognizable metal vial, sliding out from beneath his shirt and glinting, for a moment, in the light of the Hallows.

Fifteen years later, he still wore the product of their pact on a chain around his throat.

Albus couldn't stifle a stilted gasp—but it was gone again in an instant, disappearing back into the open collar of his shirt as Gellert looked back to the mesmerized crowd.

"Muggles," he said now, voice turned rhythmic and lilting in a way that felt oddly reminiscent of a preacher at his pulpit, "worshipped the earliest witches and wizards as gods. But they have forgotten their true sovereigns, forgotten their saviors, forgotten the natural order—perverted magic into something shameful, something wicked, rather than something divine."

A bright flash of light, and several of his followers were levitating forward a magically-restrained man in the garments of a Muggle priest.

Gellert smiled, and Albus went cold. This was not the bright, beaming grin he had known through all those sunlit days and starlit nights; not the blazing, laughing look that had first dazzled him in a small church graveyard. It was the sharp, cruel smile Gellert had worn when speaking of the Dark curse that had expelled him from Durmstrang; when raising his wand with the Cruciatus on the tip of his tongue; when standing in a doorway tearing Albus's heart in two.

"Atonement must be made. Penance must be paid." The robed figures threw the half-conscious Muggle man down at their leader's feet, forcing him up to his knees amid fresh murmurs from the crowd, and Gellert's smile sharpened as he raised a silencing hand. "It is long past time for a reckoning."

Another flash, and the robed followers on the other side of the platform were leading forward a trembling young girl in a white dress: thirteen or fourteen, perhaps, with long red hair.

Something burned inside Albus's throat.

Gellert held out his arms, a glittering beacon of power and beauty and light, and the girl sank into his waiting embrace. He stroked soothing fingers through her hair, glowering down at the priest with a look of searing wrath. "This innocent young witch," he told the stirring crowd, "was feared by her Muggle parents, who sought to have her magic taken from her by the Church." Shocked, angry exclamations from the crowd, growing louder as Gellert continued. "They thought her possessed, controlled by the Devil. They thought this righteous man of God—" With a furious snap of Gellert's fingers, the priest's arms jolted up behind his back with a scream and a sickening crunch. "—would save her soul. And do you know what he did instead?"

The red-haired girl was weeping in earnest now, burying her face in Gellert's chest. "He forced himself on her." Gellert's voice rang out above her sobs, above the shock and sympathy of the crowd, harsh and thick with rage. "He proved once and for all where true devilry lies—not in the miracle of magic, but in the vicious hearts of Muggles who seek to destroy what they do not understand."

Gellert's eyes, Albus saw with a nauseated twist to his stomach, were gleaming with tears of his own as he said softer, "I knew another girl, once, whose magic was stolen from her." He looked up, torchlight flooding his face, and closed his eyes. "She, too, was a victim of Muggle violence, Muggle terror." When Gellert opened his eyes, his gaze was hard again. "She was lost."

The alcove seemed to tilt and blur. The hand not holding the Deluminator, Albus realized with a jolt, was shaking on his sheathed wand—he released it with concentrated effort as Gellert pulled back to wipe a tear from the girl's face. "You," he said firmly, eyes boring into hers with the bright intensity of a spell-beam, "are not lost. You are found. You are saved. You are home. And now..." With a beckoning wave of his hand, a follower stepped forward, holding out a wand. "You will have your vengeance."

A deafening cheer rose from the crowd. The energy in the room had fast turned savage, hungry—burning keen with fury and a lust for retribution, with the kind of righteous anger that could be twisted far too easily into violence.

Albus knew that kind of anger all too well.

He watched as Gellert placed the wand into the girl's trembling hand, watched as he curled his fingers over hers and whispered the spell in her ear, watched as she raised the stick over the terrified, praying priest's head as though wielding an executioner's sword, watched as her swollen, red-rimmed eyes sparked suddenly to life.

 _"Avada Kedavra,"_ she said in a soft, clear voice, and the underground room lit up with the color of Death.

When it cleared, the Muggle man was sprawled unmoving on the platform: wide, frightened eyes gazing out unseeing at the cheering crowd. The girl sank to her knees, staring, and Gellert bent to touch his lips to her shining red hair.

"We are standing," he said, rising, "in a medieval Muggle dungeon. Over the centuries, hundreds of witches and wizards were killed in this very room." The crowd looked around, unsettled, at the shadows flickering across the old stone walls. "They were tortured and burned as heretics," Gellert continued over uneasy whispers, "but they were martyrs. And now, we must honor their sacrifice." He reached into his cloak, extracting a wand of his own. "It is time to scourge this world of its undeserving—to set fire to the old and make way for the new."

Albus peered closer from the back of the crowd—there was something off, something strange, about Gellert's wand: longer than he remembered it, and of a darker wood. But he had little time to contemplate it, for in the next instant it was arcing through the air in a graceful, swerving motion: lifting up the broken body and throwing it into the fiery Hallows. The smell of burning flesh seared through the chamber as flames engulfed the corpse.

Gellert fingered the wand in his hands as ferocious cheers erupted, practically glowing with glorious vindication. "Only the true gods can save us now, and those gods, my magical friends… are us." His robed followers circled behind him and around the red-haired girl, settling precisely into formation in a way that reminded Albus uncomfortably of a Muggle army. "My name is Gellert Grindelwald," he called over fresh applause, "and I am willing to sacrifice as many as I must on the altar of justice. I am willing to burn myself, if that is necessary to our cause. Are you?"

A roar went up from the crowd, and Gellert's voice sang with triumph. "Join me, and we will take back the world—together. Together, we will resume our rightful places and fulfill our destiny. Together, we will fight for a better future. We will fight..." He paused, then looked directly to the back of the alcove, finding Albus's invisible gaze. "...for the greater good."

 _"For the greater good."_ The crowd's echoing chant filled the room: taunting, haunting.

Without tearing his eyes from Gellert's, Albus let the Disillusionment fall. As soon as he did, every flame in the room flickered out, darkness swallowing the illuminated underground chamber.

Exclamations, cries of confusion—cut off moments later as the torches flared back to life. The girl and the robed formation of figures remained on the stone platform, but the fiery sign of the Hallows had disappeared, and Gellert was gone.

Most of the crowd swarmed the stage, eager to speak to Gellert's followers, while some moved in a daze for the passages leading out of the underground. Albus stood still for several long, shattering seconds, and then— _Albus,_ breathed Gellert’s voice, as close and intimate as if he were whispering directly into his ear. Albus inhaled sharply, glancing down at the Deluminator still clutched in his hand. _Come._

Gellert had known he was there all along, and now... Gellert was waiting for him.

With dread and resignation warring in his chest, Albus clicked the Deluminator one final time—then turned, and spun into darkness.

The first thing he noticed, on Apparating into a different stone chamber, were the bones.

Skeletal remains of varying degrees of decomposition lined a large, vaulted room, peering out of a vast network of tiered coffins in the high, arched walls. At the far end of the room, an enormous, tarnished gold cross hung above an altar filled with candles, casting eerie shadows on the skull-filled hollows.

A crypt, then. How fitting.

"I knew you would find me," came a soft voice from behind him. English, now. Exactly as remembered. "I heard you, somehow—whispering my name."

Slowly, Albus slipped the Deluminator into his robes, girded his mind with impenetrable walls of Occlumency, and turned. Gellert was leaning against a nearby niche with lethal languor, looking like a fallen angel come to collect the souls of the dead. He had removed the gold-armored cloak, revealing the plain clothes beneath: light trousers, simple boots, the white open-collared shirt that hid the vial that Albus knew hung over his heart. The longer, darker wand was nowhere to be found.

Gellert stood very still for a long moment—letting Albus's eyes rove breathlessly over him, reading what they would—and then one corner of his mouth tugged upward. "Did you enjoy the show?"

When Albus finally found his voice, it was shockingly steady. “I was already well aware of your talent for speaking exactly the words your audience wishes to hear," he said coldly. "A repeat performance was not necessary.”

"Harsh, but fair." Gellert's smirk widened into a feline smile. "You were not always so tough a critic."

Albus felt his hand inch toward his wand, and Gellert's eyes followed the movement—he laughed, soft and sharp. The sound thrummed like a stoked flame on Albus's skin. "You can't fight me," said Gellert, moving closer, "and you don't want to." Albus stepped back, hitting the vaulted wall behind him, as Gellert leaned to breathe into his ear: "I know what you want, and so do you."

Familiar heat scoured over him. The radiant warmth of Gellert's skin was far too close—his own skin remembered it, retained the vivid memory of craving and caressing it, despite everything. He could not unlearn the slopes and planes of Gellert's body; could not forget, after all these years, the aching knowledge of how he sounded, what he looked like, flush with pleasure.

They had known each other every way there was to know another. They were each of them painfully aware that the other was as human as anyone else.

An expression Albus couldn't quite place flickered over Gellert's features. He lifted a hand, fingertips brushing feather-light over Albus's face, and murmured, "Who broke your nose?"

Albus choked out a short, humorless laugh. "Who do you think?" 

Gellert tilted his head, understanding. "You never fixed it." 

"Some things, once broken," Albus managed to say evenly, "cannot be fixed."

Gellert gave a tight smile, tracing a slow line down Albus's cheek and through his beard to his mouth—sending a trembling shock through his body. When Gellert's fingers parted his lips, Albus exhaled sharply and twisted aside.

He could feel Gellert's gaze burning bright on his back as he turned away, collecting himself, saying harshly after a moment, "There is blood on your hands."

"And on yours." Albus looked back with a brittle intake of breath to find Gellert taking in his ceremonial Confederation robes with amused disdain. "Look at you. Serving at the very heart of the system you once swore to topple. Convincing yourself that it is enough, that you feel satisfied—all the while longing for your lost ambitions, longing for the grand dreams you discarded. Longing for _me_." His lips quirked upward at the expression on Albus's face. "I never needed mind-reading to read you."

"I am no longer the boy you knew," Albus said flatly—refusing to allow the hex-sting of Gellert's words to show. "If the past fifteen years have taught me anything, it's that power has a price. There are some sacrifices that cannot be justified—sacrifices I, unlike you, refuse to make."

"Yes," said Gellert, eyes narrowing, "you have always been the selfish one, between us." They were pacing around each other now, slow and wary. "While you hide in the Highlands and play at petty politics, I pay whatever price is needed for the salvation of wizardkind—for the benefit of all humanity. I, unlike _you_ , still understand that sacrifice is necessary for—"

"Speak that phrase to me again and I will end you, pact be damned." The words tore their way out of Albus's throat in a seething snarl, and something unreadable passed behind Gellert's eyes. "Is that what she was to you? A  _sacrifice?"_

Gellert looked away, glancing past Albus's shoulder to the skeletons in the wall behind them. "You think yourself so intimate with tragedy... so familiar with Death." His gaze snapped back to Albus, suddenly hard. "Do you know what it is to wake with ruination flashing across your vision, to See slaughter and destruction every time you close your eyes? No. What are your personal tragedies, against the wreckage of a world?"

"All tragedy is personal," snapped Albus, "and _her_  tragedy is not yours to share—yours to twist into some morbid _spectacle_ —"

"I am keeping Ariana's memory alive," Gellert said fiercely, ignoring Albus's flinch at the name. "I am avenging her."

"You are  _using_ her." The heat unwinding in his stomach had twisted rapidly into hot rage. "You dare invoke her memory, when you dishonor it like this?"

"I am telling her story," said Gellert, "and stories are powerful things." He smiled, and there was no warmth or amusement in it now. "You once knew that better than anyone."

"You are not a storyteller, Gellert." The name that had once felt sweet as honey on Albus's tongue now tasted like bitter poison. He licked his lips, and found them cracked and dry. "You are not a hero, or a savior, or a prophet. You are a murderer."

Gellert's lilting voice turned low and silvery. "And what are you?"

Albus froze, and Gellert stepped closer. "Before you saw the darkness in me," he said softly, "you looked at me as if I was the sun. But what of your own darkness?"

Candlelight danced over his fine features, rendering them uncanny, almost demonic. There were shadows under his eyes, so close like this, as though he had not slept in weeks. As though all that savagery that churned and burned within him had finally begun to take a toll on his outward appearance; had started to stain his beauty the way it stained his soul.

"I know the yearnings still inside you," he was saying, backing Albus into the tiers of coffins. "The urges you have denied and repressed all this time." Gellert leaned so that their chests were almost touching: the press of his body so very close.

"Your hidden self... Your true desires..." He pressed still closer, blood vial slipping out from under his shirt and hovering in the air between them. Albus felt his heart pump madly in his chest, magic surging in his veins—pulse quickening when Gellert's mouth ghosted over the heartbeat in his throat and followed a tendon upwards, hot breath vibrating at his ear. "Who else knows the darkest depths of you and wants you anyway?"

Albus couldn't think; could barely breathe. Gellert's lips were at his jaw now, his words low and melodic. "I have seen the best of you and the worst of you, and I have not looked away. I never will."

The hypnotic spell that Gellert had been weaving broke: the inaccuracy, the _injustice_ of that statement was too much for Albus to bear. "You  _left_ me," he hissed out, pushing Gellert aside and sending him stumbling against a coffin. "After—" He drew a ragged breath. "After  _everything_ —"

"Yes, I left," said Gellert, suddenly aglow with righteous indignation, "and did you follow? Did you stop me? No. You let me go. You _made_ me go." His eyes flashed in the candlelight. "You are the one who looked away."

Albus stared at him, incredulous—Gellert's face mirroring his own incensed expression—and something snapped.

In a single, shuddering movement, he shoved Gellert back against the wall of coffins, and pressed his mouth to his with enough force to make him bleed.

Gellert gasped a strangled moan into his mouth and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss with violent fervor: teeth biting at his lip, tongue forcing its way into his mouth. Albus tasted blood—his, or his, or _theirs_ —and the treacherous sensation of Dark magic crackling on his tongue. 

Then Gellert had pulled back to stare at him, fighting for breath; chest rising and falling rapidly. "You taste the same," he said in a low, uneven voice.

Albus seized the chain around his neck and forced him close again. "You don't."

Gellert laughed into his mouth, entwining a fist in Albus's hair and pulling hard. Albus answered with a tugging grip on Gellert's curls—soft as ever—and tore aside the open-collared shirt to expose his chest.

Gellert's golden beauty was too otherworldly, too ethereal already—unclothed, he was almost too radiant to look at without flinching. Albus roved a shaking hand over the vial of their blood and across the bared skin beneath it. He could feel the faint heat of Gellert's magic moving underneath the surface: familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

Their bodies still fit together like two halves of a whole.

"Albus," Gellert breathed, mouth on the hollow of his throat—lightly biting and sucking, drawing out a moan from his lips. He leaned so Albus felt the force of his erection pressing urgently against his thigh, hand moving down, _down;_ brushing deliberately over the aching evidence of Albus's own arousal, reaching for the fastening of his robes. "How I missed this—missed  _you_ —"

Albus twisted away with sudden anguished rage—rationality returning in a frantic rush now that Gellert's heat was no longer scorching across his skin. "I will not play this game," he spat out, breathing hard. “Find one of your followers—”

"My acolytes," Gellert corrected, breathless. His eyes were wild, dancing with amusement. "My soldiers. My  _disciples._ "

"Find one of your simpering sycophants," said Albus sharply, "and let him—or her, as the case may be—service you." He took an unsteady step backward. "I am no longer yours to toy with."

Something that might have been surprise flashed across Gellert's feverish face, gone so quickly that Albus may have imagined it. "Is that what you think?" he asked softly. "There is no one else for me, Albus, just as there is no one else for you." He reached out to stroke Albus's cheek, dragging a thumb over the swell of his lips. "Who else is worthy?"

Albus had no time to move or speak before Gellert wrenched him close, and turned—Disapparating them both to the other end of the crypt and leaning Albus up against the altar beneath the golden cross.

 _"You_ were my acolyte once, as I was yours," breathed Gellert, voice thick with desire. "Do you remember?" He waved a distracted hand to levitate the candles aside with wandless magic, rubbing Albus through his robes with his other palm. "How we worshipped each other?"

Albus's eyes fluttered shut, breath catching hard in his throat. "Don't fight it," he heard Gellert whisper. "Don't fight me." 

The fastening of his robes undid itself with a flick of Gellert's fingers, freeing the hard length of his cock—Albus's eyes snapped open, and Gellert grinned, victorious.

In a flash, Albus had Gellert flipped around and pinned beneath him, bent over the altar: tearing down his trousers in one quick, forceful motion. Gellert jolted back against him with a pleased gasp of surprise, grasping for the edge of the altar as he was restrained with a bruising grip on his hip.

When Albus reached to circle one tight hand around the velvet hardness of Gellert's cock, slicking it with a silent spell and stroking hard, he released a pleading groan. "Albus," he managed—hands desperately entwining in the cloth of the altar as Albus tightened his grip and quickened his pace. "You—I am going to— _ah—"_

It was staggering, intoxicating, to have Gellert incoherent and at his mercy—to have Gellert in his hands again at all. Albus felt a dizzying rush of power, a rapacious, hungry thing: the thrill of command and control.

Casting another silent slicking spell and forcing Gellert's stance wider with a shove of his thigh, Albus breached him with a finger and worked upward, a sharp jolt of pleasure running through him at the gasping, clenching moan. He was achingly responsive, and tantalizingly  _tight_ —if Gellert had allowed anyone else to do this, Albus realized with another involuntary thrill, it had not been for quite some time.

But then, Albus felt quite certain that no one else in the world knew so precisely how to brew pleasure out of Gellert's body like a potion. 

 _"Albus,"_  he groaned out, accusing—writhing, seeking purchase. 

Albus slowed his pace and added another finger. “Beg me.”

Gellert huffed a short, sharp laugh. “You," he panted out through gritted teeth, "were always better at begging—” He cut off with an arching gasp as Albus curled his fingers with impeccable precision.  _“Scheisse,”_ he hissed, nearly tearing the cloth off the altar.

“I was always better at many things.”

“Albus,” Gellert said like a curse, nearly coming undone as Albus stroked harder while brushing again against raw nerves. “Albus, _please_ —”

Albus could be merciful.

Another deliberate twist, and Gellert's entire body was shaking beneath his hands: tensing around his fingers, pulsing in his grip, spilling over his fist with a broken moan. Albus drank in the sight of his face in profile, lifted to the light of the floating candles all around them; reflected in the gold of the cross—throat exposed, eyes closed in bliss.

Before he could recover—before he had even ceased twitching in his hand—Albus wandlessly Scoured away the mess and positioned himself at Gellert's entrance, sinking his freed hand into that golden halo of hair.

Gellert rasped out another laugh—saying hoarsely, "Don't hold back."

Albus sank inside him in one stabbing thrust, and for the first time in fifteen years, they were joined together as one.

He stilled for a moment, reconciling himself to the all-consuming pleasure that engulfed him; allowing Gellert's body to adjust—each of them breathing in shallow gasps. The candles in the air were flickering wildly, seemingly in time with the steady, poison beat of his heart.

Albus began to move with slowly building rhythm. The grinning skulls behind them watched with empty, hollow eyes: Death, observing, laughing. Death, who had so thoroughly won.

Gellert's torn shirt had slid to expose one shaking shoulder, glistening with sweat. Leaning with a splayed hand on the delicate curve of his spine, Albus dragged his teeth over the bone and bit down hard on the nape of his neck: making him shudder, making him clench. Gellert's lips parted, seeming about to speak, or sob, and Albus tugged sharply at his curls—wrenching his head up and arching his back, wringing out a whimpering groan.

This was different from their boyhood trysts, all those tender stolen moments in the sunlight or between the sheets of Albus's childhood bed.

This was exactly what they both deserved.

Tightening his grip on Gellert's golden hair, Albus abandoned all restraint and fucked him, hard—quickening into a rough, punishing pace; pounding into him with unrelenting savagery.

Gellert took it beautifully: angelic face constricting, lips open and half-praying. “Albus,” he said, again and again, each thrust a gasp of relief.

Albus found the metal chain around Gellert's neck and pulled as he thrust deeper, blood and magic rising in his veins with the searing force of an inferno. Gellert had to have felt it too: he was pulsating with power, spasming around him with devouring Dark heat.

The air around them simmered with magic, levitated candles flaring madly. Release surged through Albus in an annihilating, blinding burst of pleasure. He fell forward, throwing a steadying hand onto the altar—filling Gellert with the essence of himself as he murmured a final, broken-edged _Albus_ into his throat—and it felt almost like a cleansing.

It felt almost like absolution.

When Albus finally wrenched away with light still flashing white across his vision, Gellert seized the hand that had been entangled in his hair and kissed the palm. A sacrament.

Albus staggered out of his grip, flooded with a sudden rush of _feeling_ he could not name, and the candles fell back to the altar with enough force to shake stone.

"Tell me, Albus..." Gellert's usually smooth voice was rough, sharpened with jagged edges. Albus, panting, did not turn around. "Do you feel sated? Do you feel, at long last, satisfied?"

Albus glanced back. Gellert was clothed again, but looked thoroughly spent and disheveled: hair tousled, face flushed. He leaned unsteadily against the altar, fixing Albus with a dark, canny stare. "Of course not. And so long as you continue to resist me, you never will."

Gellert shifted with a fleeting wince, light catching teeth marks already bruising the nape of his neck, and Albus felt heat flush his cheeks: guilt, or a fresh pang of arousal. Perhaps both. “You were made for greater things," Gellert continued after a moment, rubbing a red welt marring the spot where Albus had pulled the chain of the vial tight against his throat. "You belong to a higher purpose.” His eyes found Albus's, and narrowed. “You belong at my side.”

“You told me once that I belong alone." For a single stinging moment, Albus saw a younger Gellert standing in a doorway: pitiless and merciless, wielding words like weapons. “Do you think I have forgotten?”

Gellert was silent a long moment, flinching away from the icy intensity of Albus's glare. “We all say hurtful things when we feel betrayed."

“Betrayed?” Albus couldn't contain a scoffing, disbelieving laugh. “How, pray tell, have I betrayed you?”

“You abandoned the quest," said Gellert fiercely, "abandoned our mission—abandoned _me.”_ His voice was rapidly regaining its tonal rhythms, rising in passion and volume. “You cast me aside, cast me out into this world alone, forced me to carry out _our_ plans on my own, and I am doing what I can without you.” His voice caught,  _cracked,_ as he said quieter, “I am doing what I must.”

Albus shook his head, feeling all at once exhausted—feeling, suddenly, quite old. “You know what you did, Gellert.”

Gellert stepped away from the altar, his movements deliberate, precise. When he was directly in front of Albus—close enough that they were breathing the same air—he said with knife-edged surety, “I know what you did, too.”

Albus exhaled a breathless, broken plea: “Stop.”

“What do you want to hear?” Gellert demanded, ruthless. “That I did it? That I am sorry? Will that allow you to forgive me? To forgive yourself?”

Albus drew a shuddering breath, glancing up at the golden cross, and Gellert's voice softened. “What does it matter, who cast the spell that took her life?" His gaze swept over the altar—plaintive, almost haunted—and one of the candles flickered out. "We both killed her, in the end," he finished flatly. "We both must live with that.”

Albus turned aside, nails digging into his palms—fighting the sudden, maddening urge to fling himself down at the tarnished Muggle altar; to fall to his knees and pray for a salvation that would never come. 

“We cannot change the past, Albus—only the future.” Gellert moved closer, reaching up a hand to Albus's hair. He tensed, but did not move away, as Gellert brushed back a mussed auburn strand with surprising tenderness. “You are my future, as I am yours. Run from that truth as long as you can. Hide from me as long as you must. I have given you fifteen years, and I will give you as many more as you need.” Gellert's hand locked onto Albus's cheek, trapping him in that spellbinding blue gaze. “What are years, when we have centuries?”

The darkness of the crypt exploded into light.

_The two of them together, lighting the way with magic—most loved, most feared, most powerful. They looked down from above on the world they changed and created, watched as it transformed and Transfigured into glorious, magical harmony—everything bright and beautiful. They embraced through years, through ages, as their hair turned white and their bones turned brittle, until at last they surrendered the Hallows and walked hand in hand into Death: their sacred duty done._

Albus tore himself out of Gellert's grip with a tremor in his throat. “Any future we might have had together died with Ariana." The name melted into ashes on his tongue, and the smell of Death all around them was suddenly suffocating. “No visions of what might have been can change that.”

A dark, disquieting expression passed over Gellert's face. “Lie to yourself as long as you like—we both know how this ends. We are bound together by blood and by fate.” He reached up to the vial at his chest with a slow, hard smile. “Until Death do us part.”

The candles cast spectral shadows over the cross, over the coffins, over the skulls in the wall. Albus drew a calming breath and closed his eyes. “If you have seen the dark in me," he said quietly, "then I have seen the light in you.” When he opened his eyes again, he found them filled with tears. “It is not yet too late for you, Gellert. But if you continue on this path…” Albus trailed off, at a loss—images of Gellert's violence, Gellert's malice, Gellert's ferocious, feral _power_  flashing before his eyes.

“Yes?” Gellert implored. His voice had lowered—honeyed, sharpened. “Speak to me like one of your students, one of your misbehaving children—if I continue on this path, this _wicked_ path, what will you do?” His lips curved upward in a mirthless, mocking smile. “Will you punish me? Will you go to battle with me, Albus? Will you stop me?”

Albus ached with misery—felt almost sick with sorrow. “If I must.” 

“Oh, Albus… my brilliant, _brutal_ Albus…” Gellert trailed a finger up Albus's chest, spell-light lingering in its wake—tracing the Confederation symbol on his robes. “My equal, my adversary… my love.” Albus stiffened, catching his breath, as Gellert wrenched him close and breathed into his ear: “If you want a battle, I will give you a war.”

A sudden, faded procession of noise sounded in the distance: the chiming of clocks and the ringing of bells, echoing through the crypt from the city beyond. Hearing it, Gellert glanced up at once, blinking as if shaking himself out of a spell.

Backing away from Albus with a final searing smile, he reached out an arm toward the tiered wall of coffins, and a long, dark wand came soaring out of a hidden crevice and into his waiting hand.

“I need you with me to remake the world,” he said softly, stroking the wand—magic flaring up around him, Dark and churning. “I will wait for you. I will tear this world apart until you come to me, and when you do—together we will make it whole.”

The last thing Albus saw, before all the candles on the altar flickered out at once, was Gellert's blazing stare, burning like blue flame in the darkness. 

Then shadows rose up to blot out the light, and he was gone, Disapparated like a shadow himself—leaving Albus alone with the dead. The weight of Gellert's sudden absence felt like a crushing stone on his chest: the vaulted walls of the crypt pressing down around him, trapping him underground.

How long could he stay here with Death in the dark? 

Before he could find the will to reach for his wand—before he could move at all—something shining and translucent was soaring down the stairs that led to the church above and flooding the crypt with silver light: a gleaming hawk that Albus recognized as Archer Evermonde's Patronus. 

 _Return to London at once,_ ordered the cool, crisp voice of the Minister for Magic. _There has been a declaration of war._

**Author's Note:**

> Gellert Grindelwald's name lends itself to the assumption that he was born into the Austro-Hungarian empire, which ultimately collapsed at the end of what was then called the Great War. That war officially began on July 28, 1914, one month after a Serbian nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Described as the war to end all wars, it resulted in the deaths of over 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians, while instigating the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people. Eventually, the Great War became known only as World War I.
> 
> The clash between British Minister for Magic Archer Evermonde and controversial Wizengamot warlock Henry Potter (Harry's great-grandfather, who would have been the secret owner of the Cloak at this point in time) is described by Rowling [on Pottermore](https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-potter-family): when war broke out, Evermonde issued a decree forbidding wizarding involvement, and Potter publicly condemned him for it.
> 
> We don't know, canonically, where the headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards is historically located, but Prague seems as fitting a place as any: the city's legendary founder really is a witch-prophetess called [Libuše](http://magicbohemia.com/2017/07/03/prague-was-founded-by-a-pagan-princess/).
> 
> Finally, a note on the Deluminator, which has always struck me as interesting by virtue of the fact that it does far more than simply harness light from darkness: it connects the owner to the one he loves and literally leads him to that person. It is, essentially, a vessel for _love_ as much as it is a vessel for light. Certainly one of Albus Dumbledore's most intriguing, and indicative, inventions.
> 
> [Light Bringer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16210565) can be read as a prequel to this story, and my writing playlist can be found [here](https://8tracks.com/meanwhiletimely/revelation-albus-gellert). 
> 
> I highly recommend two works inspired by this piece: [Kierkegarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden)'s [to feel your pulse through foreign skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166758) and [lilith_morgana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana)'s [Fairy tale of the Marne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17176604).


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